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Lesson Plan Women and the Manhattan Project

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Lesson Plan Women and the Manhattan Project Lesson Plan Women and the Manhattan Project Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Digital Photo Archive, Department of Energy (DOE), courtesy AIP Emilio Segre Visual Archives Grade Level(s): 9-12, College Subject(s): History, Physics, Chemistry In-Class Time: 60-100 Minutes Prep Time: 15 Minutes Materials • Manhattan Project Sites Handout (found in Supplemental Materials) • Recommended Oral Histories list (found in Supplemental Materials) • Photocopies of Discussion Questions (found in Supplemental Materials) • (Optional): A map of the United States or the world • Internet access and A/V equipment to stream a short video that introduces nuclear fission (link found in Required Resources below). • Some type of soft balls. Quantity: twice the total number of students. Balls should be light weight and small. Example: ping pong balls, small foam balls, or marshmallows. • One stopwatch Prepared by the Center for the History of Physics at AIP 1 Objective In this lesson, students will learn about the history of the Manhattan Project and how many women contributed in various capacities. This lesson utilizes oral histories from women whose lives were affected in major ways by the Manhattan Project. Students will learn about these women through their oral histories and discuss their work. By the end of the lesson, students will have learned more about life at the Manhattan Project sites, as well as indirect consequences of the project, such as displacement, discrimination, and environmental and health effects. Students will also discuss their opinions and the opinions of the women who they research regarding the decision to drop the atomic bombs. Afterward, the teacher will have students conduct a simulation of a nuclear reaction and explain the process of nuclear fission. Concepts & Vocabulary • Physics: Nuclear fission, critical reaction, critical mass, Uranium isotopes, neutrons • History: Manhattan Project, World War II, oral histories Introduction The Manhattan Project In August 1939, famous physicists Albert Einstein and Leo Szilard wrote a letter to then President Franklin Roosevelt warning him of German attempts to create “extremely powerful bombs of a new type” and recommended that the United States counter these efforts by producing the bomb first. Thus began the Manhattan Project, one of the largest scientific undertakings in United States history, lasting from 1941-1946. The Project required three completely new and secret cities in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, Los Alamos, New Mexico and Hanford, Washington to be built and relied on the work of scientists at University of Chicago, University of California, and Columbia University. In all, over 400,000 individuals worked on the Manhattan Project but only a handful of those people knew what they were working toward: the construction of the atomic bomb. Women of the Manhattan Project The traditional story of the Manhattan Project centers on the work of key male players such as Robert Oppenheimer, General Leslie Groves, Enrico Fermi, and Hans Bethe. Historical research, however, has revealed the important roles women played at nearly every level in the national enterprise of building a bomb. Famous female physicists who worked on the Project include Maria Goeppert-Mayer, Elizabeth Graves, Joan Hinton, Leona Woods, and Chien-Shiung Wu. In addition to working as scientific researchers, women also contributed to the Manhattan Project as technicians as well as secretaries, clerks, switchboard operators, and truck drivers.1 The work of women on the Manhattan Project has been increasingly documented in recent years because of an effort to record individuals’ lives through oral histories. Oral histories from the “Voices of 1 For more information about the women who worked on the Manhattan Project and the various capacities in which they were employed, read Ruth H. Howes and Caroline L. Herzenberg. Their Day in the Sun: Women of the Manhattan Project. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1999. Prepared by the Center for the History of Physics at AIP 2 the Manhattan Project” website will be utilized. This website was launched in 2012 as a collaboration between the Atomic Heritage Foundation and the Los Alamos Historical Society. Elaboration: Chain Reaction Activity Nuclear fission is the process by which a massive nucleus splits into two fragments that each have a smaller mass than the original. The fission process often results in the production of free neutrons and photos and releases an enormous amount of energy. A typical example of nuclear fission is the splitting of the nucleus of uranium-235, an isotope of uranium. This is the process that powers nuclear reactors in order to generate electricity. When U-235 is bombarded by neutrons (the small blue circles in the image to the left), it splits and produces Barium, Krypton, and more neutrons. The fission of one atom of U-235 produces 202.5 MeV = 3.24 x 10-11 Joules of energy. (Image on left shows nuclear fission of U-235, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons) The uranium-235 fission reaction produces two or three neutrons which can then be used to initiate a series of fission reactions. Each neutron released can initiate another fission event, resulting in the emission of more neutrons, followed by more fission events, and so on. Therefore, nuclear fission is referred to as a chain reaction – the first event triggers several others, which in turn trigger more events, and so on. If a chain reaction will sustain itself, it is called “critical,” and the mass of the U-235 needed to produce a critical condition is called the “critical mass.” In order to create critical mass, there are two important factors: the number of atoms and the spacing of the atoms. In a nuclear power plant, the chain reaction is controlled by restricting the number of neutrons available to collide with the uranium. In an uncontrolled chain reaction (such as an atom bomb explosion), there is nothing to control the number of neutrons being released, so the rate of the chain reaction increases dramatically. In the Elaborate section of this lesson plan, each student will represent a single uranium atom inside of a nuclear reactor. Once hit with a neutron, each uranium atom will release two neutrons in the nuclear fission process. The more students that participate, the better the demonstration will be. Instructions Engage: 5-25 minutes Teachers will introduce students to World War II and the Manhattan Project by fostering a short discussion. They will ensure that students recognize the important role women played at the various sites. Use the Introduction to this lesson plan for guidance. What is the teacher doing? What are the students doing? Ask students to explain how and why the If known, explain how the Manhattan Project Manhattan Project emerged during WWII. Ask emerged, and who is typically associated with the them to name who they typically associate with creation of the atomic bomb. Understand that the development of the bomb (likely responses women were also crucial to the Project’s will be Oppenheimer and other white, male completion. Prepared by the Center for the History of Physics at AIP 3 scientists). Explain that women were also crucial Receive the Manhattan Project Sites Handout contributors. and discuss the various sites as a class. If possible, mark their locations on a map. Lead a discussion about the various sites of the Manhattan Project (distributing copies of the Manhattan Project Sites Handout). It may be helpful to place pins in a map of the United States or the World (e.g. at Los Alamos, Oak Ridge, Hanford, Tinian, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki) to demonstrate the extent of the Manhattan Project. The Voices of the Manhattan Project has created a useful map that locates each site and provides brief descriptions of each. Explore: 30-35 minutes Students will work individually or in small groups to profile a woman whose oral history is included on the Voices of the Manhattan Project website: http://manhattanprojectvoices.org/ . A list of twelve oral histories is provided in the Supplemental Materials for this lesson. Students should select an individual from this list and explore their stories through the oral histories and further research. All oral histories can be read as transcripts, and some come with supplementary audio or video. Students will prepare a presentation with their research findings. (Optional): This activity may be modified to be completed as an out-of-class assignment to save in- class time. What is the teacher doing? What are the students doing? Distribute copies of the Recommended Oral Receive the Recommended Oral Histories and Histories (from the Supplemental Materials). select an individual from the list. Have students select an individual from the list to research. Allow computer access for students to complete Receive the Discussion Questions from the their research and provide students with copies teacher. Access the individual’s oral history at the of the Discussion Questions (located in the Voices of the Manhattan Project website. Read Supplemental Materials) to guide their research. the transcript of the oral history, and answer as Note: not every interview contains answers to many Discussion Questions as possible. If ALL questions. Students should complete as many possible, conduct additional research on the answers as possible. individual’s life. Prepare to present research findings to the class, including answers to the Have students read the transcript of their Discussion Questions. individual’s oral history. Have the students prepare a presentation about their findings, which will incorporate answers to the Discussion Questions. Prepared by the Center for the History of Physics at AIP 4 Explain: 10-20 minutes Students will present their research findings to the class, incorporating Discussion Questions. Each Presentation should be two to five minutes in length. Afterward, students will reconvene as a class and discuss similarities and differences among the stories. What is the teacher doing? What are the students doing? Ask students questions about the women they Present research findings to the class in a two to researched, including name, place of origin, role five-minute presentation.
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